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Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

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Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t agree that internet platforms deserve to be in their own special category which is uniquely required to police bad content. The only reason it happens is because it’s not politically or technically feasible to do it when the message comes through another medium. I think it’s wrong on social media for the exact same reason it’s wrong to arrest power companies if a guy staples printed CSAM to a utility pole. Sa…

From what I've read the arrest wasn't related to lack of proactive moderation, but the lack of, or refusal to do, reactive moderation i.e. law enforcement say "there's CSAM being distributed on your platform here" and the owner shrugs > for the exact same reason it’s wrong to arrest power companies if a guy staples printed CSAM to a utility pole That seems like a bad analogy. A closer one would be that I rent the pol…

I’m not interested in having a publisher vs platform debate. You know what I mean.

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#642
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, it's the only major messenger that has an actually lightweight, well-written and full-featured desktop client rather than yet another boxed-up web browser. I might be more enthusiastic about using the alternatives if I could use the Telegram client.

Some of these are native apps; not Electron, Java, or what have you: https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/ (Of course, I don't know what qualifies as a major messenger to you.)

They used to have a page wittily named "feature matrix", which made it apparent that only Element was really kept up to date, with other clients missing features ranging from channel search to embedding images. I don't know if this situation has improved and whether the original page still exists somewhere.

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a multi-national with a legal presence in that country you likely have the resources to engage local counsel in answering that question and to assist in understanding the legal risks of various business decisions.

I don't ask for legal advice, I ask you how do you imagine the "always remove illegal content, easy" part of your plan to work? There's no common definition of what is legal. E.g do you suggest removing content if it's illegal anywhere in the world?

Why would you not ask for legal advice on potential legal issues when registering users from countries you do not operate in? That is the only way you can understand the definitions of what is and is not legal in those countries.

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a multi-national with a legal presence in that country you likely have the resources to engage local counsel in answering that question and to assist in understanding the legal risks of various business decisions.

I don't ask for legal advice, I ask you how do you imagine the "always remove illegal content, easy" part of your plan to work? There's no common definition of what is legal. E.g do you suggest removing content if it's illegal anywhere in the world?

The defendant in question is a French citizen, being arrested in France, so if I were similarly situated I would expect to follow French law at a minimum.

My answer wasn't intended to be dismissive, truly, the answer will be specific to ones legal situation and the jurisdictions they plan to operate in and are best answered specifically by competent counsel in those jurisdictions after considering ones specific facts. Asking if ones should comply with laws "anywhere in the world" is not a useful question by itself.

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a multi-national with a legal presence in that country you likely have the resources to engage local counsel in answering that question and to assist in understanding the legal risks of various business decisions.

I don't ask for legal advice, I ask you how do you imagine the "always remove illegal content, easy" part of your plan to work? There's no common definition of what is legal. E.g do you suggest removing content if it's illegal anywhere in the world?

This really isn't a difficult question to answer: You remove the smallest subset of content such that you are allowed to operate in the markets in which you plan to operate/have a business presence in/plan to visit.

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "service provider" apologists I sincerely doubt that Telegram makes most of it's money by being this kind of host. I don't generally give the government the benefit of the doubt when it comes to _communication_ platforms. I also see zero evidence that Telegram's existence or policies help promote or create crime in any way. It's not conspiratorial to refuse to show deference to the government which currently only h…

> "which currently only has vague accusations to justify jailing a CEO" If they are charging him and intend to convict, they have specific accusations, unless the French legal system is much different than the rest of the western world. > "If the French government was so concerned about the criminal aspect then they should just order Telegram to not operate in France or they should work to block it at a national leve…

> so the trial hasn't happened yet

Precisely. So the constant need for people to gatekeep in here and chastise other people for having a negative view of the French government's actions is, to me, absurd.

> and yes the government could be full of shit

Yes. That's the assertion based upon the balance of history and probability and the complete disconnect between these actions and actual law enforcement outcomes.

> that would presumably come out at trial as dropped charges or an acquittal.

That doesn't mean we can't have a discussion about it.

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#647
post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should certainly have a formal process to respond to those countries’ requests, and you might consider technical architectures that don’t leave you in direct custody and control of that content in the first place.

> You should certainly have a formal process to respond to those countries’ requests Mere responding is evidently not enough, you need to cooperate. > you might consider technical architectures that don’t leave you in direct custody and control of that content in the first place. This rules out the "public channel" feature. Essentially what you say boils down to a global publishing platform being impossible nowadays…

> Mere responding is evidently not enough, you need to cooperate.

Only if the request is coming from a country with a lot of power to effect its judgments internationally, or from a country you plan to personally visit. Whether or not you agree with it, ignoring legal requests from the US, China, and the EU (and debatably some other countries), isn't really an option in this day and age.

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#648
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, it's the only major messenger that has an actually lightweight, well-written and full-featured desktop client rather than yet another boxed-up web browser. I might be more enthusiastic about using the alternatives if I could use the Telegram client.

Line has a fully featured desktop client that's even more lightweight than Telegram. They also have a white paper that explains their encryption which is decent enough https://d.line-scdn.net/stf/linecorp/en/csr/line-encryption-... You do need to turn off "display stickers suggestion" before the app becomes nice.

Intriguing (and surprising to me that they offer E2EE at all), but there is seemingly no Linux build. I can't seem to find source code either (Telegram Desktop's is released under the GPL).

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#649
post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really ask why? This isn't about serving justice - it's statuary example for anyone trying to run an unmoderated platform.

Have you used Telegram before making this comment? It is moderated. You really think this is about the company, the platform, not about politics? Well you should think again.

Should have written >unmoderated<. No service would live 2 hours if it would be actually unmoderated. But seemingly they only remove content that is directly a product of/causing physical harm.

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#650
post #138

Whoa, it's absurd if true... I fail to see how being responsible for not cooperating with authorities can be turned into being accused of these crimes. And I don't care for the legal gymnastics which makes this possible - the law exists to serve the public interest and is of no inherent value.

By knowingly facilitating criminal activities, you become complicit.

Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.

Why do I bring that line of reasoning up? Because an actually exhaustive traversal of 2nd-6th order effects renders everyone complicit in something, especially in the presence of things criminalizing not looking for things.

You should never count yourself out of being a complicit party for something, and realize that if you're going to impose a penalty on a group you consider a "them"; it is likely only a matter of time invested enumerating your effects in the world to make evident something they did has been enabled by you. Even if only by you not making the choice to do something about them.

Bad things will happen. We can't prevent them all. And trying to zero any class of bad thing has so many onock on effects, that even the most trivial sounding solutions need be met with strictest scritiny to figure out what they will break.

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